The Birdcage (31 page)

Felix watched them go, his heart beating so unsteadily that he was obliged to reach for the back of the chair to support himself. He longed so much for harmony to exist between these two; hoping that the gentle powers of understanding and friendship might go some way to healing the pain and resentment that still reached forward, long-fingered from the past, to touch and bruise the present. He sensed the current of interest that flowed between them, sparking intermittently into something more than just curiosity roused by times past, and he was seized by anxiety.

He'd laughed aloud as Lizzie hopped from the porch into the road each time a car had come along, startling the driver before leaping back again and waving up to him, miming fright, expectation, and turning the whole scene into street theatre. He knew that it was a means of keeping up her own spirits, refusing to let her nerves take control: behaving just like Angel before a performance. He remembered how she'd greet him with exaggerated relief, clutching one of her cotton wrappers around her, the after-lunch coffee cup rattling in its saucer as her hand shook.

‘I can't remember a single word, sweetie, not a word of it. My mind is quite, quite blank. Thank goodness you've turned up, Felix. I do hate the afternoon before a first night. I have this terror that I'm going to say the wrong lines. Once, when we were doing a Rattigan season, I was standing in the wings just before my entrance and I couldn't remember whether it was
French Without Tears
or
The Winslow Boy
. Everything went black. Oh, the horror . . . Felix, I think I need soothing . . .'

That wicked upward look, which spoke volumes of love and need, had never failed to move him; but then Angel had been able to show her vulnerability, gratefully accepting assistance whilst continuing to find her own ways of dealing with it – just as Lizzie did now. Marina had hidden her weaknesses, armouring herself with pride and self-righteousness against his attempts to help her, becoming weighted and clumsy with an iron-clad self-protection, so that each time her jealousy and fear unbalanced her it became more and more difficult to right herself.

Now, watching Lizzie, Felix was pierced with pity and remorse, knowing that, even after he'd finished the affair with Angel, its shadow had lain between him and Marina; an indelible stain that could never be washed away no matter what solvents of affection or penitence he applied to it. He'd betrayed them both: Marina and Angel.

‘She began drinking,' Lizzie had said, ‘well, she always liked a drink, of course, but more serious stuff. It was a bit of a vicious circle, if you see what I mean. She'd drink a bit, become unreliable, lose her confidence and then drink a bit more. I'd begun to get work myself by then so it was poor old Pidge who took the brunt. It was quite a gradual process; an extra shot of whisky before going down to the theatre, a little sip between acts. She was very naughty and cunning, as you can imagine, and Pidge didn't really have a hope . . .'

He'd tried to imagine that older Angel, unconfident, slowly losing her professional edge, unwilling to face his own part in her disintegration, his face sombre. Lizzie had carefully stared out of the window.

‘It's difficult to know when it really began,' she'd offered. ‘I wondered whether she'd been in a play which folded, something like that, or whether she was getting to that age which is so deadly in the theatre: the onset of the big four-o was such a nightmare. These days there's television to take up the slack but there wasn't the scope for Angel . . .'

Even as she'd attempted to ameliorate his guilt he'd been remembering that final meeting with Angel in Bristol. Now those memories came flooding back, driving the thought of Piers and Lizzie from his mind.

As soon as she sees his expression she puts an arm about him, drawing him into that magic circle of emotional security.

‘Sweetie, you look terrible,' she says. ‘Whatever is it?'

The windows are open, the leaves of the plane tree flickering gold and green in the afternoon sunshine, whilst the drone of the city beats quietly beyond the small green deserted square. He looks about the room: Angel's yellow, silk fringed shawl flung across the broad lap of an armchair, magazines in an untidy pile on the floor beside it; Lizzie's new ballet shoes – the blocked pink satin toes in the process of being darned – standing together on the table with Pidge's work-basket, full of brightly coloured reels of cotton and a fat rosy-pink velvet pincushion; the new, clean, sharp-edged sheet of music – a Beethoven sonata – balanced on the rack of the piano whilst a stack of yellowing, crumpled pages threaten to topple from its shiny lid onto the black and ivory keys; and – presiding over all this dear, familiar scene – the birdcage. He stares up at the two pretty birds, with the small chick beside them on the perch, and his throat constricts with misery.

‘Come,' she says, watching his face, ‘come, my darling, you look in need of soothing.'

He goes with her for the last time to the warm bed, postponing the brutality of parting, snatching this final offering of comfort and love.

‘You've said this before,' she tells him later, wrapped in a long cotton garment, her hair falling over her shoulders, her face pale. ‘It's impossible, Felix. We tried it once and it didn't work.'

‘It has to work.' He cannot look at her. ‘Marina has said she'll divorce me . . .'

She moves swiftly to his side, looking up into his eyes which were turned so resolutely from hers. ‘Would that be so bad?' she asks softly. ‘Would it, Felix?'

‘It's not simply that,' he answers wretchedly. ‘She says that I would no longer be able to see Piers.'

‘She's bluffing,' she says at once, taking a step back, retying her belt more firmly. ‘She couldn't do that.'

‘She might be able to. After all, we haven't exactly been over-discreet, have we? If it should come to court . . .'

‘No-one would keep a parent from his child.' Rising fear makes her voice tremble. ‘It's nonsense.'

‘I can't take that chance.' In his attempt to make her understand how serious he is he merely sounds harsh. ‘I have to think about Piers.'

‘And what about me?'

‘Do you imagine that this is easy?'

‘I see you for a few days each month, if I'm lucky . . .'

‘How often we see each other isn't the point . . .'

They argue in self-defeating circles until finally, hating himself, he raises the weapon of his marriage and prepares to crush her with it. ‘You always knew the score, Angel. I've never pretended that I would ever leave Marina. We knew that this might happen sooner or later . . .'

She loses her temper then, battering him with bitter words, accusing him of faithlessness, of cowardice . . . until, suddenly, Pidge appears and Angel turns towards her.

‘He's leaving us,' she tells her, almost conversationally. ‘He's really going this time, Pidge. What shall we do?'

The sudden outburst of weeping shocks him and he steps forward instinctively, his arms outstretched, but Pidge shakes her head, holding Angel, watching whilst he takes one last look around him before passing through the open doorway and down the stairs.

He'd never seen her again. Even now he couldn't tell if he'd made the right decision. At least he and Marina had come to love each other again at the end, even if it had been a result of her suffering. He had the small comfort of knowing that she'd needed him and he'd been able to give her comfort and affection. Felix took a deep breath: he needed a drink. No point in sitting wondering how Piers and Lizzie were getting on together or brooding over the past; he'd be better off having a jar in the pub with one or two of his old chums, followed by some lunch. He pottered about collecting his keys and his hat and, treading carefully down the stairs, made his way out into the busy street.

Leaving Piers to pay the bill, Lizzie wandered out of the long, low-ceilinged bar, blinking into the bright sunshine. Crossing to the sea-wall she stood for a while, her arms folded on the warm stone, looking down at the small boats which rested, beached and motionless, waiting for the tide to lift them back to life. The long mole reached out into the Channel and, on the spit of land beyond it, three cottages huddled comfortably together, their backs turned against the sea.

Piers appeared beside her, pushing his wallet into his back pocket, looking across to the harbour wall.

‘Would you like to walk out to the beach?' he asked.

‘I should love to if you've got the time.'

They fell into step together, side-stepping visitors, coming together again, each aware of the other. Lizzie paused on the little bridge to look down into the inner harbour where other boats lay, some rotting into wrecks.

‘I wish the tide were in,' she said dreamily. ‘It seems impossible to imagine how much water would be needed to fill it up. It must be very beautiful at high tide with a full moon.'

‘It is.' He wandered ahead, his hands in his pockets, glancing back at her. ‘Perhaps tomorrow evening . . . or Friday? We could have dinner at the Anchor. I can't promise a full moon but I'll check the tides . . .'

He hesitated and she smiled at him, nodded her agreement.

‘That sounds nice. But not Friday. I shall be back in Bristol by then.'

He couldn't disguise his disappointment. ‘In Bristol? But when are you going?'

‘On Friday morning.' She made a regretful face. ‘The room was only free for four nights. I suppose I was lucky to get in at all at such short notice but I'm beginning to wish I could stay longer.'

Piers tripped over the extended lead belonging to a small waddling spaniel, apologized to its owner, and reached out to draw Lizzie on to the grassy space in front of the cottages.

‘You can't go just yet.' He tried for a light note, which didn't deceive her at all. ‘You haven't seen Michaelgarth yet.' He was rather surprised to realize how very much he wanted this. ‘Does my father know that you're going on Friday?'

She nodded. ‘I mentioned it this morning. I told you about meeting Tilda?' She gave a small chuckle. ‘She pressed me to stay, bless her, but it's not quite that simple. I should think that the place is bursting at the seams, although she mentioned a self-contained flat in Dunster. At a bookshop . . . ?'

Piers nodded abstractedly, realized that he was still holding her arm and let it go abruptly. They moved forward again, pacing slowly together, each in a pensive mood.

Lizzie thought: I think he really does want me to stay. Goodness, I've talked myself hoarse but he really seemed to need to know all about Angel and Pidge. He wasn't being polite. Oh, crikey! Should I go or should I stay? How I'd like to stay . . . if he really means it. Felix would like it, I know, and that darling girl. How terrible that her husband, that Piers' son, was killed . . . and the baby . . . Oh God, the baby! Could I deal with that . . . ?

Piers glanced at her from time to time, trying to gauge her reaction. He was astonished at how flat he felt, thinking that she would be gone in less than forty-eight hours. Her story, which she'd told with all the flair of her profession, had given him a great deal to think about, rather as if a missing member of his family had unexpectedly arrived on the scene; someone who could fill in the gaps, who shed new light on old memories: a gentle light that was kind to human failing and softened the hard, black and white edges of preconceived truths. It was impossible that she should disappear almost as suddenly as she'd arrived.

‘And anyway,' he said aloud, as if clinching an argument. ‘I'm on holiday next week. I can show you round properly.'

Even as he spoke the words he thought of Alison again; since Tilda had mentioned her at breakfast, she'd been there at the back of his mind, a shadow across the expanding light of this strange, new happiness. They'd reached the end of the mole and stood together, staring out across the Bristol Channel to the distant hills of Wales, faint and insubstantial in the hazy heat. Lizzie watched him thoughtfully.

‘Perhaps I could check out the bookshop . . . ?' She pursed her lips, looking casual, open to possibilities but not
too
keen – ‘If Tilda thinks it's OK . . .'

‘Well, it's an idea.' He shifted his weight, thrust his hands into his pockets, made his decision. ‘But you might think of staying with us – Tilda and me and Jake – at Michaelgarth . . . just for a few days.' He looked down at her and away again. ‘Perhaps it's a bit sudden. After all you don't really know any of us, but it could be rather fun.'

A gull screamed above their heads, wings stretched white against the sky, drifting in the light airs. Lizzie turned, looking back at the high wooded hills above the harbour, shutting her eyes for a moment against the sun's heat and then opening them again to smile at him.

‘Thank you, Piers,' she said. ‘I should like that very much.'

PART THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Lizzie stirred, drifting between sleep and waking, her eyelids fluttering. Her hands opened and closed, stretched out on the sheet as if reaching for something . . . or someone.

‘It couldn't matter less, darling,' Sam is saying. ‘You know me. It's part of the job as far as I'm concerned. You know how really good photographers always say that they have to be a little bit in love with their subject to get the best out of them? Well, that's all it is. But you always knew that, didn't you? It wasn't as if it was ever a secret and it's got nothing to do with you and me.'

She struggles to speak, to tell him something important, but she cannot make a sound.